I am the guest on the "Good Seats Available" podcast...
http://goodseatsstillavailable.com/listen/2018/12/9/episode-91-nasl-soccer-video-archeology-with-dave-brett-wasser
The images are grainy, the commentary earnestly naïve, and the theme music disco-infused, but the bigger picture is clear – it’s American soccer history, in all its VHS videotape glory.
Gleaned from a simpler, pre-HD media landscape of the 1970s and early 1980s – much of it before even the mass consumer adoption of the VCR – the roughly 900 hours of TV broadcast match coverage that still survives from the pioneering North American Soccer League is a veritable time machine of pro soccer’s coming-of-age. And one man has been chiefly responsible for compiling and preserving it.
De facto soccer video anthropologist Dave Brett Wasser has spent over two decades tracking down virtually every known snippet of NASL game footage – more than 450 league and exhibition matches in all – for what is arguably the most comprehensive collection of vintage soccer Americana anywhere.
Meticulously (and sometimes just plain luckily) sourced from a myriad of former players, coaches, TV network vaults, and even garage sales – Wasser’s now-digitized trove has become the go-to source for some of the NASL’s most memorable competitive moments for today’s generation of soccer broadcast producers and documentarians. Including even the newly-rechristened National Soccer Hall of Fame in Frisco, TX.
In this revealing conversation with host Tim Hanlon, Wasser talks about: his childhood memories of local WOR-TV/New York broadcasts of Cosmos games; the impetus to rediscover them as an adult in the early 1990s lead-up to World Cup USA 1994; the people he’s met along the way of amassing his collection; and the tenuous relationship with the Hall of Fame in his quest to comprehensively digitize and permanently house the entire set of videos for current and future generations of American fans of the “beautiful game” to enjoy and learn from.

Here is footage of the USA playing the "Irish Free State" (it was not yet called Ireland) in 1924. The US National Team began in 1916. This was the USA's sixth game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VLgQtuAoCg I collect videos of old US National Team games. If anyone would like to exchange games, my site is: www.DaveBrett.com Dave

I am in this article explaining how difficult it is to get a video of the historic 1980 USA victory over Mexico: http://www.sbnation....-cup-qualifying Not Just Another Game When the USMNT played Mexico in 1980, everything changed By Noah Davis -Dave

I have a massive collection of NASL videos: www.DaveBrett.com This guy (also named Dave) has a massive collection of NASL Jerseys: www.nasljerseys.com If you want to trade DVDs of NASL games, contact me on my web site, and if you want to exchange jerseys, just contact him. Between the two of us, we've got the NASL covered. Dave

Here is my WANT LIST August 10, 1976: Miami Toros at Cosmos Pele scores on a bicycle kick 1976 Soccer Bowl: Toronto vs Minnesota This is the only Soccer Bowl I can't find. August 14, 1977 Playoff Game 1: Strikers at Cosmos This is known as the "77,000 game" at the Meadowlands. 1978 Playoff: Cosmos at Minnesota Kicks The Kicks beat the favored Cosmos 9-2 in the most lopsided upset in NASL history. 1978 Playoff: Minnesota Kicks at Cosmos The return match in Giants stadium. Carlos Alberto won it for the Cosmos in the shootout. Dave

The Daily Soccer Fix just wrote about my NASL video archive: Daily Soccer Fix I found an amazing match from 1968. It's the Atlanta Chiefs vs Manchester City. I uploaded a clip of it to YouTube. The article on Daily Soccer Fix includes a link to the clip. Enjoy, Dave